Born in Milwaukee and educated in
Boston, Theodore P. Druch went on to take a “higher” degree at Timothy Leary’s
LSD commune at Millbrook, NY. He has written about this experience in a “true”
novel, Timothy Leary and the Madmen of Millbrook. He went on to become a general contractor in San
Francisco, mostly remodeling old Victorian homes. At the age of fifty-eight, he and
his partner, Maria Ruiz, chucked it all and ran away from home to see the
world. They spent ten years traveling to fifty-two countries, and living in
several for extended periods. In Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, he rekindled an old love of
writing. He was an active member of the Puerto Vallarta Writer’s Group, and
conducted a weekly workshop for serious authors. He was organizer and chairman for the 7th Annual
PVWG International Writers Conference in February, 2012. He is currently living in
Sacramento, California where he’s working on a series of detective novels
featuring Joe Gold, a Jewish PI in the mold of Sam Spade.
Welcome to the blog, Theodore.
How many books have you written?
Eight so far.
Give a short synop of your most recently published book.
The Case of the
Mayor’s Wife:
Joe Gold, a down
and out PI, is approached by his ex-mistress with news that their daughter has
been kidnapped. Thing is, she’s now married to the corrupt Mayor of Central
City and he thinks the now 17 year-old girl is his. She also hasn’t told her
husband because the kidnap is part of a blackmail plot against her and she
doesn’t want him to know something. Before Joe can even begin investigating,
he’s the victim of a knife attack and spends several days in the hospital. To
top things off, before she can give him some important information, she herself
is killed and Joe is left completely on his own without the vaguest idea of
what to do next.
As he sorts it
all out, he finds himself on a journey through the corrupt backwaters of
Central City on the way to a surprise he never expected.
How much of yourself is hidden in the characters in the
book?
Well, Joe Gold certainly
has a lot of attitudes and thoughts that are mine, so he’s definitely an alter
ego. We are also very different though. He gets himself into situations where
I’d be hiding under the bed. Very Walter Mittyish, it would seem. I suppose
that lots of other characters also spring from somewhere within my psyche or,
at least, some of their behavior and thinking does.
In my case, I’m
really trying to do homage to the great noir detective writing of people like
Dashiell Hammet, Raymond Chandler and, in my lighter moments, Mickey Spillane,
so I actually follow a tried and true formula that has more to do with
familiarity than psychology. There are no new stories, only new twists - if I’m
lucky enough to find them and tease them out of the narrative.
The toughest part
is doing it without being obvious, so the reader wonders “why didn’t I think of
that.” When all is said and done, putting one over on him is great fun but
you’d better make him enjoy it too or he won’t buy your next book.
I also worry less
about how much of myself is hidden in my characters than I do about how much is
hidden within me.
What challenges did you face while writing this book?
I was living in
Mexico, working with the Puerto Vallarta Writers Group when I started it. It
was interrupted for some medical emergencies and a quick move to Sacramento
that turned out to have saved my life.
Other than that,
writing it, and three sequels so far, was a blast. The words came in a flash
and it was the easiest writing I’ve ever done. If I was a believing man I’d say
that I was being guided by the ghosts of the writers aforementioned. But I’m
not, so I’ll just say I have no idea. Creativity cannot be quantitatively
evaluated beyond the number of books you write. Or is it sell? I get confused.
Quality is solely in the eye of the beholder.
So do you travel to do research or for inspiration?
My partner, Maria
Ruiz, also an author, and I ran away from home in 1998 and spent the next 10
years traveling the world. After that, we settled in Puerto Vallarta for six
years. It was certainly the inspiration for two travel books. Footprints on a
Small Planet is about the three years we spent traveling Mexico and Central
America by motor home.
The most
interesting trip we took was an impromptu, month long journey in Africa, which
we had to undertake to renew our Kenyan visas. We ended up visiting Victoria
Falls, the Island of Zanzibar, and going on safari in the Serengeti. We had
expected to be gone for a weekend. I’ve written about it all in African
Odyssey.
We lived in
Chiang Mai, Thailand for a year and a half. It’s one of the most fascinating
and interesting places on the planet. Another place not to miss is Halong Bay
near Hanoi, Vietnam. If you can arrange a boat on a nice, misty day, you’ll
have the experience of your life as fantastically shaped mountains rise from
the mists like ghosts as you sail along.
Anyone who truly
wants to understand how lucky we are in the West must definitely spend three
months in India. It’s truly a psychedelic place but give yourself about three
months to come down afterward. Earplugs are advised and you must try to harden
your heart to some the most abject misery on earth hidden behind a veil of
brilliant color and motion, or you could go mad.
What do you think is the greatest lesson you’ve learned
about writing so far? What
advice can you give new writers?
There are two
things that I have found for sure. The more you write, the better you get. And
when you write fiction, sooner or later your characters take over your story
and you become just their hired pencil pusher. Eventually, you have to become
ruthless or they’ll kick you around.
The best advice I
can give new authors is have a good source of income that doesn’t depend on
writing. My very best advice is make sure that your parents are fabulously
wealthy and don’t care if you actually make any money at all. If they’re happy
for you to sit around scribbling all day you’re in like Flynn. Just don’t write
anything too true about them or you’ll find your word processor set up in some
dingy little tenement room.
HAHAHA! Love your response.
Where do you store ideas for later use: in your head, in a
notebook, or on a spreadsheet?
They’re all in my head. I tried keeping a notebook but it became
apparent that a good idea just stayed. If I forgot about it, it probably wasn’t
any good anyway. That, by the way is probably your most important job,
recognizing the crap and being ruthless with it.
We all know how important promoting our work has become. How
do you get the word out both off and online?
Now there I’ve
been remiss. I don’t do anywhere near what “they” tell you to do, but I’m just not convinced that promoting yourself
endlessly on the internet isn’t more annoying to everyone else than lucrative
for you.
I do have a blog,
but I haven’t done much about updating it.
Blogs and websites are more important for authors who
already have a considerable following. I know people who spend hours chatting
on facebook and sell maybe $30 – 40 per month. Maria and I make regular rounds
of retirement communities here and read from our books. We’ve made as much as
$100, but that’s unusual.
It’s also worth
trying to get people to review your book, but no one really pays much attention
to those that have been paid for.
The sad truth is that it’s easier for a rich man to pass
through the eye of a needle than for an unknown author to sell a book.
Unless you really
love to write, you probably should not waste your time at it.
Can you tell us your future writing goals/projects?
My immediate goal
is to sell the next two books in the Pure Gold series. The Case of the
Reluctant Vampire, and the Case of the Bigoted Blogger. They are being
published shortly as ebooks by Stark Raving Books, a publisher of noir
novellas, and I’m self-publishing the paperbacks on Amazon through Create
Space.
At the same time, I’m starting work on a new one tentatively
titled the Case of the Gregarious gringo that will bring Joe Gold to Puerto Vallarta.
Where can folks learn more about your books and events?
Are your books available in print and ebook formats? (please
provide the buy link for easy reader accessibility)
They are available
in both and are all available at this link.
http://www.amazon.com/Theodore-P.-Druch/e/B007XW6I5O/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1412993154&sr=1-2-ent
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